Dare to Die
by slimingmywaytoheaven
Summary: A mass murderer is using the name of Noir, and setting Mireille and Kirika in quite a pickle. The police are getting leads to them instead of the actual killer, however. The Soldats are willing to help, but they're not the only ones involved.
1. The Underworld

"Mireille!" No response. "MIREILLE!" The voice came, far more urgent this time. It hinted at a scream of desperation, her hair swirling about her face from the force of her cry. Black, black locks. The same color of her gun and hands. She could feel the cold metal against her flesh, and she gripped it tighter, hoping that perhaps it would somehow bring control over the situation. One shot had always been able to solve the problem.

"Come back, Mireille!" she called again, her ears straining to hear those footsteps that echoed down the emptying corridors. The sharp double bang of a revolver rang in her ears, the sound of leather on metal grates ceasing for a moment. What on earth was the blonde thinking!?

Gasping for breath, the pale featured girl sidestepped over the hand of a still body and fled downwards into the darkness. On either side, the walls of an underground world loomed, slowly closing in with each footstep she took. She dug in her toes, shoving off as hard as she could manage, careening around a corner and slamming into the wall on the other side. Refusing to let a sound escape her lips she stumbled forwards and made double time. The bruises would heal, but you couldn't bring the dead back to life.

The blackness ended suddenly, opening up into a belly of metal, white eyes staring at her and spiraling down, down. The faint glow of red and the pump of machinery echoed, bouncing off the walls and travelling upwards to exit far above her head. She girl dug her feet into the slippery surface on which she stood, but that scene kept coming forwards and finally the ground fell from beneath her feet. The voice of shock escaped her mouth, sliding the polished walls to the end. She wasn't going to die just yet, she determined, dropping her gun to catch herself on the precipice. Her fingers did not oblige and they scraped against the smooth metal, burning and peeling the flesh that kept her from a bitter end. There was no time to really realize what happened, but Kirika knew she was falling, the flames of hell rising up around her, those eyes following her all the way down.

- - -

"You bastard," a heated voice echoed above the humming of modern machine. Clad in red and black, with a lipstick embellished face, a blonde woman's hands shook around the grip of death. Her eyebrows were closer together than they'd ever been before, steel eyes reflecting a red world from underneath the shadows. She found herself hesitating again, unable to shoot. Every time it nearly cost her life, and Kirika had always been there to save her. However, in her anger she'd left the black haired girl behind. This time, though, she needed nothing. That trigger would be pulled.

"Noir," it spoke, its voice light, calm and sully. Mireille hissed, no one showed fear or emotion. Out of everyone they tackled with death was not a thing they feared. If that bullet hit them they'd consider it a wonder.

"Do you want to feel the bullet cracking through each and every rib until it sends the shards of your own flesh into your heart?" she growled, dropping the gun lower to point towards the stitched outline of a breast pocket illuminated by the massive chamber behind them. "Show some fear!" she hissed, leaping forwards and slamming him against the wall, jamming the cold, hard metal into the soft give of his stomach. It wasn't right! She was here, terrified that a bullet would come at her, left, down, right, up. Perhaps it would pass through her brain, creating a keyhole shape from the extreme angle it entered at. Then it would exit in an explosion that would litter the opposite wall with the last remains of any thought.

The man lurched and coughed, his saliva dripping dowards onto her hair, but his own chuckle followed. Enraged, Mireille shoved forwards farther and let her finger pull back. The bang that followed was satisfying and dreadful. It left her empty inside, yet sighing for relief. For a moment, the two were suspended motionless, and then the weight of the dead slowly increased on her shoulders. Disgusted, the blonde rolled him off onto the floor. For a moment she stared at those eyes with lay transfixed on the ceiling. They'd lay there for eternity. Someday he'd fade into dust.

A sick feeling entered her throat, but she ignored it, escaping out the side door. The drip of a broken water pipe greeted her, placed covertly underneath a hollow stairway. It was a steep climb to say the least, but it led up and out of this world of haunting dreams. She reached out with a hand and jerked herself up three flights at a time, pausing only when her toes slipped and the sharp edges her heavenly way cut red into her knees. Grunting she pulled herself up, using the railing as a hold, but her failing strength conquered her and she too suffered the same fate as her friend.

The sound was far more defeating than the pain that did not follow. She knew that she'd landed back first, heard the smack of her flat contacting with the surface she'd so recently escaped. The plop of water escaping from its face boomed in her ears and the soft, cool splash hit her temple and slid down to her jaw.

"Tch," she muttered, rolling over and gasping as the pain suddenly decided to rush in. She could battle her way through a horde of people, but she couldn't climb stairs to safety. In a moment they'd discover her, and it would all be over.

She could only hope that Kirika made it out alive.

- - -

She sat staring at the yellow light shining so far away. Her fingers were curled around it, for it felt so close and so warm, yet she could not capture it and get away. It spoke of love and smiled at her gently, offering a gentle caress on her dry and weary eyes.

Her name was Kirika Yamuura, but that wasn't really her name. She had no name, other than Noir, and no existence other than to kill.

And now she was dead, silenced in hell. Voices flooded her senses, silence was replaced by that eerie rumble from deep below. She was not dead, she reminded herself. Only hanging on one bitter thread, ovals of metal pushing into her back and many more rising above her, Kirika existed. She could see the intricate frame folding its way above her, escaping into many black voids along the way.

Resisting no longer she shoved herself up and onto her feet, performing an acrobatic display practiced time and time again. Warily she climbed onto a bar stretching into the infinite depths and leapt. Her hands caught on the rung above her and she pulled. Over the top, repeat, until at last she could see the darkness beckoning her a short distance away. She shifted onto her toes and slowly worked in a crouch towards that escape. She could see them, watching her from below, but they couldn't get her up here. Those eyes would stay there forever, watching where she would no longer be in a few moments.

She reached the edge and crawled to her safety. This ground was at least moderately solid. It would not crumble beneath her if she suddenly lost her balance, nor would it draw her down, down.

"Funny, that one of you always makes a mistake," a voice emerged from the shadows. Kirika froze, raising her gun.

But it was not there. With a grimace Kirika remembered it had fallen. She could do without it. She took a rush into the shadows, wielding every bit of skill she could remember to overcome the odds. A hand caught her arm, ripping her sideways. She aimed for its jaw, but another slammed her in the gut. She doubled forwards, her own insides begging for mercy and the breath she so desperately needed fading from her lungs.

Shots rang out all around her. She felt her legs crumple beneath an overwhelming force. She could not support herself anymore. Finally she felt the pressure on her skull and blackness filled the lights in her eyes.


	2. Lost

Noir was caaaaaaallling me. Seriously, I've been thinking about this ALL day. I finally said, "Rot for a bit" to my science paper and sat down to write, where I currently am now, typing this up for you to read. And after you may point and laugh at it.

Thanks for my two reviews. ;D And all you sneaky people that have subscribed to the story.

Edit: I worked over the little bits Danny said might need some clarification.

- - - - -

Her jaw ached, but more than that it itched. She could feel the scratch of blood as it dried and turned brown, but was unable to anything about it. Her arms were tied behind her back, feet wrapped taught to the limbs of a chair. Classic scene of a hero in a torture room. Only, in every book or movie Mireille had ever introduced her to there was always a mistake and it was made by the company providing the torture. This time, they weren't in one of those fictional wonders. The vine wolves had come to devour their prey.

"So, again, how'd you find us out?" the voices prodded. Kirika opened her mouth to speak, but the world before her dissolved.

_The faucet was teasing her. Drip, drip, drip. Kirika watched it lazily, her elbows becoming sore from being pressed against the edge of the counter for so long. It slowed for a moment, or maybe it was the girl's concept of time taking a break. Either way, she stuck out a finger and let the water hit and slide its way down. It was cool, ticklish, but mostly it made her think of Mireille. It was c__old and repetitive like the Corsican's voice, but she didn't know if Mereille felt tingly like this. Could she? Kirika wondered if anything but water could cause such a strange sensation, and decided to ask later._

_"Kirika, turn that faucet off," Mireille's voice drifted in from the adjacent room. __It was light, controlled, with just a hint of annoyance underneath. It showed she knew that Kirika was responsible for the sound. It had been deliberately placed on the edge of off and on. __"It's a waste," came the conclusion. Kirika sighed and reached out to end her moment of intellect. __Her mind strayed back to the other room, where the ratta tatta of keys had ceased._

_"Mireille?" she questioned, slurring her l's into a thick and rolling r. __She strayed from her spot, finding no more restitution in an empty sink. Carefully, she slunk forwards, peering around a painted corner to see what was wrong. __The laptop was still there, resting against the green fuzz of a rather tattered pool table, but Mireille was not. Well, her body was there, but it was clear from her expression the rest__ of her was lost in the screen._

_"You should come look at this," came the answer as Mireille took a moment to look up and smile nervously. Kirika breathed a sigh of relief__, but inhaled more worry as she strode forwards. She took her customary place by Mireille's side, careful not to let __any part of her body touch her. It would feel far too. . . awkward. __Was that the word for it? Mireille had used it once__, in some sort of conversation. It would have to have been the night after the Cecilian princess had pressed her lips against Mireille's. 'Well, that was awkward.' It was a phrase that came between many others, and it was accompanied by laughter, but it wasn't a sure laugh. No, it contained a sort of paralyzed fear that only the Noir could understand. Chloe, __too, had done the same to her. Was this what one did before they knew they were going to die? Did Chloe know? Did the princess?__ Or was it just an accidental fate?_

_"Are you getting this!?" Mireille snapped, jerking her down into existence. Kirika shook her head and looked back down at the scrolling pages before her. Various colors and images scattered the screens (along with a window that Mireille quickly closed), but in the center was a column of words. The top boasted big bold black Times New Roman with the message, "Noir Kills Again, The Innocent Are No Longer Safe". __Kirika had __to read it twice. The innocent? Is that __what they were calling them now?_

_"Four children, and a mother dead. . ." Mireille muttered, continuing on in such a manner. So this time, it really was the innocent, Kirika noted to herself. In a flash the picture on the laptop changed and the movement of Mireille's fingers ensued. Over the course of a few minutes she'd forced Kirika to read several articles, each with a different set of deaths in places they'd never been, but all located in Paris, France. "It's a wonder they haven't completely destroyed the population." __Kirika agreed, her face holding a distinct sorrow for the victims. Her fingers curled tightly around the chair, as though each word was a knife slicing through a different part of her body. She gulped down the lump in her throat, but what troubled her most was not as much the death as it was the fact they were killed using a name that should have only belonged to them. A name that __now __spelled danger__ am__ong the eyes of the public._

_"The killer is assumed to be somewhere here in Paris," Kirika could see Mirielle's pause as she decided whether or not to laugh at the statement. No further comment or change in expression followed, so she assumed the blonde found any emotion so pointless it would have been a waste of energy. Just another wrinkle on your face, Mireille?_

The world around her was silent. They'd left her for now; left her with the cold concrete pushing into her shoulder and hip bones while the ropes strained against her skin. She could feel her left ear against the earth, hair falling downwards to join it where it was long enough to reach. With a smile she closed her eyes and tried to gain some real sleep. It was so easy to drift out of reality.

- - -

Her tail bone was sore, but fortune was hers on that evening. Though she was wet and her body was beginning to cool to dangerous measures, she was alive, un-captured and she didn't have a bullet through her brain. Taking two deep breaths she stepped up another flight and pressed her back warily against a metal wall. She snuck the point of her weapon around first, followed by the rest of her body. Nothing. A heavy sigh of relief escaped her and she continued her way down the corridor.

-

It was like a giant labyrinth with no end or was it no beginning? Shutup, Mireille, this is no time for book references. Where the hell is the exit? she griped inwardly, wanting to spin her gun out of boredom, but refusing to let her guard down. You didn't need to be able to say the word fatal to deduce that one. She paused when her passageway ended. Below her lay a giant pit. It must have stretched ten or twenty cars across, with no noticeable way to reach the other side. Maybe someone could make it if one dragged themselves onto the supporting beams and decided they weren't afraid of heights. Anyone who had come to that conclusion was clearly insane.

Hence, the reason why she was looking for a way onto the nearest one of those crossbeams. The way down was lit for her, but at some point she could no longer make out the detail of the curved siding. It was enough to tell her, 'This leads to hell and nowhere else.' The more she stared, the more it became dizzying until she had to lean on the entrance arch to keep from falling forwards.

_The phone rang. Mireille stared at it for a moment. No, she didn't want to talk to anyone about the new hit drama on TV. If it was one of those phone calls. . ._

_"Hello?"_

_"If you have a moment, we'd like to ask you ab--" The phone was tossed into the air, and shortly after a gunshot rang out. It hit the table in a mess of splintered white and metal. Springs and coils went every direction, along with the netting of a speaker that put annoying phrases into her ear._

_Mireille could see a __dumbstruck__ Kirika holding two cups of tea. The cabinet behind her suffered a small wound of its own, merely inches away from the blurry form of the teenager. __Mireille held her breath, swallowing the lump that had formed in her throat. After all this time, she still had not become completely acqua__inted with living with another._

_"Are you okay, M. . ." she seemed afraid to say the rest of it. "M-Mireille?" The blonde's eyes slid in their sockets and heavy set on the Japanese before she cracked a grin and slunk back in her chair, hands covering her face in dismay. _

_"You won't believe it," she answered, rubbing her temples.__ She didn't wait for Kirika's footsteps to get all the way behind her, but turned the computer completely around. She half expected the sound of shattering ceramics, but Kirika was oddly unshockable. __She just looked confused. All the time.__ Kirika called it memory __loss __and __Mireil__le called it lack of education. They were both equally insulting__ phrases__ from the sides that used them._

_Kirika sipped her tea, eyes flitting from one line to another. Mireille watched the growing apprehension in her eyes with each passing word. She passed the remaining tea cup to the Corsican, who took it gently in both hands. __She waited patiently for Kirika to finish, comment, and __perhaps,__ask a question._

_"I, I don't understand. Why are the Soldat's helping us with this?" Kirika frowned and rotated the machine back to Mireille's waiting eyes. She glanced the information over once more before deciding an answer._

_"Simple. This hurts their image. __Noir is their __name__ and no one else's. __They want us to take them out. They're having us take out the other Noir." __That was only half the story. After they rid the world of this problem, there was still the police force to reckon with. No one was going to let this go until someone was dragged into cust__ody. Punishment had to be dealt. __The Soldat's already had somebody ready to confess the crime. __They had __a whole__ web of people to back them up, with fake evidence and reports. __The Soldat__s__ could do that, they __ruled almost all of Europe, __after all._

_"If we remove them, the Soldat's have agreed to keep our identity in the dark?" _

_Mireille nodded__ and twisted her gun in her hand, watching the overhanging light reflect of its surface.__ It sounded even more suspicious when Kirika spoke it allowed._

_"Mireille?" The voice was timid and shy._

_"Hmm. . . ?" she answered as gently as she could, raising her eyes to look at the other. Kirika had her fu__ll attention, well, almost._

_"Does water . . . give you a feeling?"_

_Had she heard right? What kind of a question was that? Mireille clenched a fist and released it, attempti__ng to choke back the urge to ask what she meant. __This had better not been another one of those poems. Between what Chloe had spoken and the man with the book, Mireille could no longer stand them. __They ceased to be literature._

_"Of course it does. Scientifically it releases endorphins in your body which allows you to relax and relieve stress." Her lips curled. "I do all my best thinking in the shower." Kirika had not whipped that clueless expression of her face. "Albert Einstein and several others." It refused to leave. "Oh, never mind."_

"This Ballerina work isn't going to work for me," Mireille muttered to herself, catching herself on the bar once again. The sound of her efforts echoed above and below her, but she hadn't fallen to her death just yet. Put a mark on her records, she was going to live through this one, too. What must Kirika have been thinking? 'Where is Mireille?' 'I wish Mireille would get her derrière back up here.' 'Maybe I should go looking for her.'

Well shit. It would be just the type of thing for her to do. They were both really big idiots, weren't they? She was attempting to climb the stairway to heaven above the depths of hell and Kirika was launching a rescue mission into an underground where both would meet starvation before they found one another.

"Hey! Who's that up there!?"

Error four hundred and thirty five at one o' clock on the superior side, and he was aiming his gun at her. It was time to pick up the pace, not to worry about where or where not Kirika was or the nasty drop that awaited her with an open maw.

- - -

If you haven't figured it out already, than the italized is much like a flashback.

And I find it funny that both of their sections started with the 'pain' they were in.

Kirika: I've got a sore jaw, and I'm bleeding.

Mireille: I've got a sore ass. A sort HOT ass. Pwned.

Kirika: . . . Why is everything a competition?

Oho, was that humor? No wai. You may shoot me now. Thanks again for reading!

Oh, and referring to written kissing scenes in Noir. I think Mireille let's the Cecily girl hold that kiss for an awful long time before she does anything about it. Now I've put in my two cents.


End file.
